


Harriet Vane's Medieval Mysteries

by Annariel



Series: Primeval Meets Lord of the Rings [4]
Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Primeval, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an anomaly in the stacks of Shrewsbury college library, and it seems like it has opened before.  Morris is  chasing down the sources for one of Harriet Vane's lesser known works and stumbles into another world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harriet Vane's Medieval Mysteries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rain_sleet_snow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/gifts).



> Thanks to Fififolle for beta-reading.
> 
> Morris, once again, stolen without permission.
> 
> It was meant to be just a Primeval/Lord of the Rings crossover, but somehow Lord Peter Wimsey got involved as well, if only tangentially.

Morris sat down at the heavy wooden table with the box the archivist had given her. She was in a little side room somewhere in the bowels of Shrewsbury college's library. It had a forlorn looking computer in one corner and locked cabinets full of books on each wall. It wasn't quite the stacks but it was the next best thing. She opened the box file. 

This was a bit of a side project. She had always been a fan of Harriet Vane's murder mysteries and had been surprised and excited to stumble across a "Medieval Mysteries" book by her in the Oxfam book shop on St. Giles. It was a battered, cheaply printed paperback. Wikipedia claimed it had been self-published late in Vane's life. Morris's interest was piqued not only by the slightly eccentric descriptions of weaponry it contained, but also by the foreword in which Harriet Vane said the tales were adapted from `a manuscript I stumbled across in Shrewsbury college library'. Wikipedia claimed the manuscript was a literary device. Certainly no one else had ever come across it on the college's shelves and the mysteries were set in something closer to a fantasy world, than medieval England.

However, since she was currently a visiting researcher at the college, Morris had decided to indulge herself and follow a hunch. Instead of searching through the index for medieval manuscripts she requested the notes that Harriet Vane had bequeathed the college on her death. In particular Morris asked for the box on Sheridan Le Fanu. Harriet Vane had written a small monograph on the author and had, apparently, stayed at Shrewsbury while she did the necessary research.

The box contained two soft-bound notebooks each filled with neatly written notes, references and quotations, as well as hand-written drafts of sections and paragraphs of the final monograph. Morris was fascinated by the glimpse into the research methods of a pre-digital era. Beneath the notebooks was a soft leather folder. Morris lifted it out. It was a bag, and to Morris' expert eye it appeared to have been made using a very accurate reproduction of medieval techniques. She opened it curiously and pulled out a roll of parchment. 

Morris spread it out on the desk. Like the folder, it looked to have been made in a traditional fashion even though it was not aged enough to be hundreds of years old. It was written in Middle English. Morris skimmed through the first few lines and was convinced that this was, indeed, the original manuscript that Harriet Vane had mentioned

However she was puzzled by the whole thing. The manuscript was modern, could Harriet Vane have created it? It didn't seem like her and the style of writing was more epic and grandiose than that that appeared in her detective novels, but it didn't feel like a pastiche either. Perhaps someone else had created it, Morris pondered, and Harriet Vane had been fooled into thinking it was older than it was. Morris pulled her own notebook across and started making notes. There was definitely a paper in this, something about historical context, Victorian romance, and forgeries, Morris thought, though she would probably need someone from an English department to work on it with her.

Somewhere in the distance there was the faint sound of a woman laughing. A quiet laugh, that was trying not to be heard, but something graver and more weighty than a giggle. Morris vaguely cursed students, though at the same time she wondered where they were. It was the holidays and the library was virtually empty.

Morris raised her head. Fragments of conversation were now reaching her. She realised with a start that they were speaking Middle English. Only at Oxbridge, Morris thought, little show-offs.

"I'm sure my father didn't destroy them. He must have placed them down here somewhere."

"You said he called them foolish inventions. Are you sure he kept them?" the woman's voice was full of gentle doubt.

"I don't think he would have destroyed anything my mother created."

The woman made a hmming noise. Morris got the impression that the man was failing to convince.

"I want you to have them. I think she would have wanted you to have them." The man's voice was raised now and it rang clearly through the room.

Morris shoved her glasses up her nose in annoyance. She couldn't concentrate on her own work with these weird snippets of conversation floating past her. She stood up and pushed open the door of the room. A glittering ball of light filled up the corridor beyond, effectively blocking her exit. Morris took a step backwards in alarm. She knew enough by now to know the danger she could be in.

"Maybe he kept the stories in his rooms," the woman said.

Morris had been about to shut the door and phone Becker for help, but now she hesitated. She needed to warn these students.

"Hey! Hello!" she called.

"Who is that?"

"I'm a visiting researcher, but we've got a bit of a situation. You need to get everyone out of the library. Tell Miss King, the librarian, that Dr. Morris sent you and that I'm going to phone someone who can explain everything. But the library needs to be emptied quickly."

There was a short silence and then the man said, still in Middle English, "Your speech is strange. What are you saying?"

The footsteps approached rapidly and Morris cursed students, their curiosity, their lack of caution and whatever it was making them pretend they couldn't understand modern English.

"I'm fine, but I need you to get out of here. Someone will explain later but this is urgent," Morris thought she'd managed a passable attempt at Middle English.

"What is this sorcery?" The man's voice was close and loud. Morris tried to peer around the ball of light. She'd like to be able to see him before she gave him a piece of her mind about arsing around re-enacting in a crisis. The corridor beyond continued to be empty. 

"Are you in Shrewsbury college library?" she asked cautiously.

"We're in the archives of the Citadel in Minas Tirith." It was the woman who answered her this time.

Morris glanced hesitantly at the manuscript she had been reading and then walked over to pick it up.

"That wouldn't be Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor, would it?"

"Of course."

Morris looked at the light again, took a deep breath, and stepped into it, manuscript in hand.

On the other side lay, not Shrewsbury college's mixture of carpet tiles and old panelling, but a stone built room. It seemed like it was still a library of sorts, with wooden shelves groaning under the weight of thick, leather bound tomes and curled scrolls. Morris sneezed in the dusty air.

A man and a woman stood before her. Both wore medieval style clothing. They stared at her in surprise. Morris glanced down at her baggy jumper and jeans and wondered vaguely how she was going to explain herself.

"Who are you?" the man asked. His voice was gentle but there was an undeniable air of authority in his tone.

"Umm, I'm Morris. I'm a visiting researcher at Shrewsbury, but I don't suppose you know what that is."

"Morris?" the woman said. She smiled slightly, but her voice had the same echo of steel and command.

Morris was struck by a number of things about the two people before her. They both looked like soldiers. Morris knew enough members of the armed forces to identify something in their bearing, and the tone of their muscles, that suggested people in top physical condition. Their stances suggested that they could switch into alertness at any moment. The man had dark hair and grey eyes, while the woman's hair was long and blonde, though her features were drawn and gaunt as if she was ill, or had just recovered from some illness. They were richly dressed with embroidery on their dresses and tunics. 

"Who _are_ you two?" Morris asked.

"I am Faramir, steward of Gondor and this is my bride-to-be Eowyn of Rohan."

Morris nodded feeling a little faint. The medieval mysteries mentioned the stewards of Gondor.

"Would you believe me if I said this ball of light thing was some kind of portal to another place?"

Eowyn looked at her. "Your manner of dress and speech is strange and we live in a time of many wonders. I think I would believe you."

"We should talk to the King," Faramir said. "A portal to another place. We will need to think about it even though, your manner suggests you mean us no harm."

"I think the portals just close after a bit," Morris said. "I mean, I'm not really supposed to know about them at all, but I get the impression they come and go. Not usually like this, though, I mean, I don't think they normally lead to places like this." She didn't like to describe the room as a fictional world but she couldn't think how else to describe it.

"My mother once said something about a link between the worlds. I thought it was another of her tales. She said it was where she got the idea of writing stories. She met another lady who wrote here."

Morris looked at the manuscript in her hand. "Umm, she didn't mention the name of the lady did she? Harriet Vane, for instance."

Faramir frowned. "She might have done, the words sound familiar. We came down here looking for her stories. I wanted to give them to Eowyn."

Eowyn smiled at him slightly indulgently. "He fears I will be alone once my kinfolk have returned to Rohan and that these stories will be some companionship."

"But I can not find the manuscript," Faramir said. His voice contained sadness tinged with annoyance.

"Would it be this?" Morris held out the manuscript.

Faramir's eyes lit up. "That is my mother's hand."

He took it from and began scanning the text. "Yes, these are the stories as I remember them."

"I think she must have given them to Harriet Vane for safe-keeping then," Morris said. "They must have met a second time. I couldn't work out where they came from. They made no sense in the context of my history."

"Your history?" Faramir looked up, curious.

"I'm not sure I can explain. I'm not sure I understand it myself."

"Our thanks," Eowyn clasped Morris' hands. "I hope you do not mind returning them."

"No, no, I don't think so. No one knew they were there until I went looking and, well, it was only really curiosity on my part. My real work is historical weaponry."

Eowyn's eyes shone with interest. Morris had a suspicion Eowyn would be a lot more interested in Morris' theories about steel-working in the 13th century than she was in Faramir's mystery stories.

"Yes, our deepest thanks!" Faramir bowed formally to her.

"Well, I guess I should be going, before that thing goes away," Morris gestured at the shining light that led back to Shrewsbury college.

Eowyn leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Take this in return to remember us by."

She pulled a brooch from her dress and pressed it into Morris' hands. It was a beautiful piece of silver-work, that depicted a galloping horse.

"It's lovely," Morris said in admiration.

"It is the sign of my people, to go along with the tales of Faramir's."

Morris smiled awkwardly and stepped back slowly through the light. She glanced back once, to see Eowyn and Faramir standing hand in hand, both looking at the manuscript. Then she was back in the Shrewsbury reading room.

She packed Harriet Vane's notes back into the box file, gathered up her battered paperback and pinned her new brooch to her jacket. It was a shame about the paper, but it wouldn't have been the easiest thing to write, so perhaps it was just as well. When she looked up the shining light was gone and Shrewsbury college was back to normal.


End file.
